In short, yes, familiarity and other legs up can help, but that doesn't mean they should be seen as the exclusive keys to success. It's harder to succeed without them, but harder doesn't equal impossible or not worth trying. After all, while patterns and norms definitely exist, the achievements we remember are the ones that break the norms, that defy the odds. Last year, nobody expected Barbie and Oppenheimer to do as well as they did, but they were hits because they transcended the formulaic and predictable and offered innovation and quality. Yes, they had big stars and directors attached, but that wasn't the only reason they did well.
WHO
specifically on this board said really ANY factor is EXCLUSIVE to the success of film?
ANd the "not worth trying"....relatively easy to do with books.... but for movies,
especially those that we are talking about IN THIS THREAD TITLED "Sony Spider verse" -- people would have to invest A LOT of money to make it happen, as well as for people to WANT to come see it.
Much of this thread , at least with the NON-Spiderman stuff, is about Sony is failing to do what they should to make a sustainable Spiderverse. I think many of us agree that Madame Web, Kraven that potential El Meurto movie don't have what's needed to for Sony to make the money they want (or really keep going as a Spiderman-character-related franchise).
The point is why it made that box office. It's not exclusively about who the stars or the director were. There are other films with the same stars that didn't do as well, and I'm pretty sure the director had never previously made a hit of this magnitude. It made so much money because it was smart and well-made, because it offered something special that was about more than just superficial calculations and formulaic expectations. The stars and director didn't just stand there and generate success automatically by their mere presence. They earned it by doing the work to make something worthwhile. So it follows that less well-known filmmakers could also garner success by making something really good.
Who
specifcally on TrekBBS has said it was "exclusively"...???
That's what it boils down to -- whether people care enough to make a good movie. That matters vastly more than whether the character is known to the public. Really, the comic-reading audience is less than a tenth of a percent of the moviegoing audience, thousands compared to millions. So how big a character is in comics has no relevance at all to most of the movie audience. Yes, buzz is a factor, but buzz can be generated by a good movie about a new or obscure character.
The comic audience might be small, but their social media buzz can often be magnified, either positive or negative, which opens the door for many others to be interested. There might be other factors, such as with EL Muerto, that Bad Bunny was involved. He might not mean a thing to me or you or most on TrekBBS, but having him attached would definitely open up a lot of buzz....which
could gain even more momentum if people who
do see it think it is good, and share that.
If the people making Sony's live-action superhero movies were really up to doing a good job, if they really cared enough to bring quality and fresh ideas to the table, they could make a buzzworthy movie about El Muerto as well as they could make one about Spider-Man. But that's unlikely if they're just churning out superhero movies based on shallow calculations about how to generate buzz.
And that last sentence is what everyone here
already knows
So you're saying
Frozen and
Zootopia were live action...?
And when did "lib have ANYTHING to do with the conversation??
Why even bother doing El Muerto without a specific celebrity attached? He appeared in, what, two comics ever? They should just do the damn Black Cat/Silver Sable movie they were apparently planning for years if they're that out of ideas for more Spider-man related films, at least those two characters are compelling on their own.
Honestly, I think that a Morbius sequel would be more interesting then doing a movie about El Muerte, and I don't say that lightly.
I think you have an excellent point, but Christopher's rant derailed from this legitimate view.
I will never understand the assumption that nobody will care about a movie unless they're already familiar with the characters. Not many people cared about the Guardians of the Galaxy before James Gunn made a movie about them. For that matter, nobody had ever heard of The Incredibles before Brad Bird's movie, because they didn't exist before it. The way to make people care about a movie is to make a good movie. Relying on their pre-existing affection for an established character is a crutch, a shortcut. It's bizarre to see it as a necessity.
Of course, "make a good movie" is a bar Sony has yet to clear in their Spidey-without-Spidey franchise...
My point is that it's possible for a movie to succeed financially because it succeeded creatively. Yes, considerations like prior popularity are a factor, obviously, but it makes no sense to assume that they're the exclusive factor. That's mistaking averages and aggregates for absolutes. If movie success were that formulaically predictable, there wouldn't be so many failures. It's never that simple. There are countless variables involved, and anything you can say about general trends and broad strokes may be true as far as it goes, but it is very, very wrong to mistake that for a universal, inviolable law. The biggest successes are the exceptions, the ones that break the rules and predictions and expectations. Surely it goes without saying that you don't become a smash hit by being average and ordinary, but by doing something special.
And that's why you can't reduce it to simplistic bromides like "big-name stars help a movie" and assume that's the entire story. I mean, how many less successful movies did Robert Downey Jr. make before he did Iron Man? His presence was a factor, yes, but what made that movie work wasn't just who was involved, but what they did with it -- to take what was fundamentally an entirely generic, formulaic superhero origin story and use it as the framework for a brilliant exercise in semi-improvisational dialogue and acting. It was their skill that made the movie work, not their mere presence. You talk about getting big names, but the reason those names become big is that they're capable of making good movies. But that doesn't mean they're guaranteed to, because every great actor has their share of duds and misfires. Even the best batter never bats a thousand, or even half that. But when their movies do well, it's usually because they were done well. Quality matters. And thus it follows that people who aren't already famous can also make quality movies that audiences respond to. Everybody's gotta start somewhere.
The point is why it made that box office. It's not exclusively about who the stars or the director were. There are other films with the same stars that didn't do as well, and I'm pretty sure the director had never previously made a hit of this magnitude. It made so much money because it was smart and well-made, because it offered something special that was about more than just superficial calculations and formulaic expectations. The stars and director didn't just stand there and generate success automatically by their mere presence. They earned it by doing the work to make something worthwhile. So it follows that less well-known filmmakers could also garner success by making something really good.
That's what it boils down to -- whether people care enough to make a good movie. That matters vastly more than whether the character is known to the public. Really, the comic-reading audience is less than a tenth of a percent of the moviegoing audience, thousands compared to millions. So how big a character is in comics has no relevance at all to most of the movie audience. Yes, buzz is a factor, but buzz can be generated by a good movie about a new or obscure character.
If the people making Sony's live-action superhero movies were really up to doing a good job, if they really cared enough to bring quality and fresh ideas to the table, they could make a buzzworthy movie about El Muerto as well as they could make one about Spider-Man. But that's unlikely if they're just churning out superhero movies based on shallow calculations about how to generate buzz.
Maybe partially because it was Barbie? It makes a billion dollars annually in toy sales. Would that movie have done as well with same cast and story but without the branding? I think the quality of the movie was a factor but I don't see how that can be dismissed as a factor in its success.
I think we're all getting bogged down with trying to go to absolutes. Is it possible Sony could kick out a superb movie about a strong luchador that will do bonkers at the box office, I suppose. I think we'd all agree that it would take some passion to make that happen, I'm not sure where that will come at the moment. Maybe there's a director just waiting to do that but I'm not holding my breath.
I think that's setting the bar ludicrously low, though. It's not a binary choice between fame and complete obscurity; there are degrees in between. You're shifting your own goalposts here, since you were the one who set the parameters last week by saying that a movie couldn't get attention without a "big name" attached to it. That phrasing implies someone on the A-list, someone extremely famous and popular, as opposed to the vast majority of filmmakers and performers of more moderate prominence. By ruling out anyone who's done any released work before, you're contradicting your own "big name" premise. It is nonsensical to define "big" as synonymous with "nonzero."
To prove that everyone else is wrong, of course.
EDIT: I should delete this I know, I promise my future posts will stay focused on Madame Web and El Muerto (God help us all....). Not having a good week and this has just been aggravating me.
This rant by Christopher is because many of us don't see the potential success of El Muerto, and he seems to refuse to try to understand our point.
Could you elaborate on how the Alamo is using that as an ad? Going to their website I do see it as a thumbnail for a preview video, is it more than that? (I don't live in an area with one of their theaters)
Sure. SO i first saw that ad as a Facebook posting, but when i tried to click on it, it would just go to the ALamo Drafthouse website and i couldn't find the graphic. SO i googled "Madame Web Alamo Drafthouse" to find the ad. So it might not be a movie poster, per se, but iseems to be official and out there somewhere.
Yes it is, which is why I was a little confused when people seemed to be arguing with me.
I read Christopher's comments as basically saying that some random person off the street could buy a camera and get a bunch of friends together and make a movie, and WB or Disney would release and it could make a billion dollars.
I don't think he was saying that as much as others seemed to interpret it that way. I think Christopher's insistence that a movie can be good just by its own creativity. I don't think anyone has argued against THAT. HOWEVER, it's really hard for a movie to be financially successful (and thus providing ability to make OTHER films in that way).
I think people kind took it a bit far in then trying to prove that you can make a "successful" film with out some measure of other factors, such as a significant studio, genre, character, actor, or director connected to the production.
That is not even close to what I was saying, so you really need to work on your reading comprehension.
And are any of your claims that people are saying you can
only have success if XYZ is what they
REALLY said/meant?
YOU certainly need to work your own comprehension.and understanding. for someone who claims to be a professional writer of fiction, you seem to have a hard time relating to people with different points of view as yourself.
Name specific people who say they believe you can
Not kind of rude. It was rude.
I agree with you guys! (
@Starscream2112 and
@Saul )
And I feel JD was being rude by accusing me of saying something so blatantly ludicrous.
Not really. He was simply stating his own interpretation, based on your
false assumotions that someone (you never name who) thinks that movies can
only be successful if they have a big name attached to it
Okay but... why would you read it that way?
